Renfro
by thedorkygirl
Summary: Renfro. Max. And Manticore. GIVEN UP.


Renfro; what in the world is she thinking? How does she view these things that are happening all around her?  
  
Part .01  
  
With a swift nod of her head, Renfro saved two lives; she had Zack stunned. She flinched when she heard the gun go off, but after the doctors rushed forward and checked him, they assured her that any and all bullets shot forth from the gun had missed.  
  
Thank God. That was one X-5 that they could not lose. The veritable mine of information stored in his brain was simply wonderful. He was so much better than the X-7 because of the simple fact that he retained his memories and the X-7 could not reach him. The X-5, the last hope of Manticore; their leader was saved.  
  
"Kill an X-7, preferably the X-5s clone, then make a new one to take the place of the deceased one. Age it, then turn it lose with it's hive-mates. It will get all knowledge and information it needs from it's hive-mates. The same ol', same ol', eh?" Renfro laughed at her joke. The doctors said nothing, but prepared to follow her orders.  
  
It had been done several times before. First, it was an accident. During a training mission, however idiotic it may sound, all eyes and ears were not looking in one certain direction. The sniper, supposed to have been apprehended before he could touch his trigger, shot X7-632.  
  
He died from the shot that entered the left side of his brain and left the right side. They were at a loss at what to do; without a complete team, the X-7 hive did not work as well as one would want it to. So, Renfro, brusque and a little angry, cried out that they should just re-clone the little bugger then find some way to magically age him.  
  
Brin stepped forward and reminded Renfro all that Renfro needed reminding of with a soft moving of the mouth. What about me? Brin asked silently.  
  
It had been done. The hive-mates accepted this new one as a replacement for the one taken. As they all shared the same thoughts and memories, the same central brain, this new one shared them too. It was as if X7-632 had never died. It was a marvelous success.  
  
They did it again, to see if it was a fluke; it wasn't. A third time a child died and was re-cloned, a third time it was accepted back into the hive as it's predecessor.  
  
They had found the way for a group that would never grow old. When the prototype reached a certain age, her or she would be terminated and then the clone would be aged to the perfect age to begin fighting. After researching very hard, they decided that fifteen was the perfect age to begin. They hadn't any idea when the perfect age to end was yet; none of their prototypes were old enough to be tested.  
  
True, if they aged them it would solve a lot of their problems, but Renfro knew it wouldn't be like a real life situation, where the wear and tear of age and battle had taken its toll on the prototype. Renfro wasn't a fool, she prided herself on that. She knew that she must wait out that little battle.  
  
So, by killing off the clone of the X-5, the clone of Max, something that only entered Renfro's mind seconds before she spoke it, she saved a life. That was her second life that she saved. Quite an accomplishment.  
  
It didn't mean that Renfro couldn't screw around with the X-5s' minds. Of course she could. If she wanted to get them thinking back on Manticore track, she had to make sure that they were in the depths of despair and were pulled out of it by the very people they swore they hated.  
  
The female prototype was not as violent nor as talkative as the male prototype. While he swore and screamed and asked where Max was, Renfro calmly watched him, inwardly pleased, outwardly indifferent.  
  
"She is dead," Renfro told Zack. "You are much more useful to us alive than she is. Do you think that we are idiotic enough to let you kill yourself over some girl? What do we look like, pre-Pulse parents?"  
  
Renfro added this last remark casually enough. She, however, cringed in her mind at the reference. Her own brother had killed himself because his girlfriend had dumped it. Actually, it was her half brother and they hadn't gotten along very well to begin with. Renfro cringed because it always shamed her to think that someone in her gene pool would commit suicide; it was the coward's way out.  
  
"Bitch," Zack spat at her. Renfro smiled.  
  
"I think," she began, "that somebody needs a little rest." Renfro motioned for the medical staff to come forward. "Dose him," she ordered, then walked out of the room and toward the female prototype's room.  
  
Yes, that interview was much more satisfactory. The look of pain on the face of the X-5 was quite more rewarding than the look of hate that had been on Zack's. This was the place where she would play the soft, sympathetic director. This was the place where she would flaunt her control over the other woman. This was the place where she was truly a winner.  
  
It was great having them back at Manticore, alive, together. To date, they had lost two X-5 forever and gained three. They were up by one. Marvelous, simply marvelous. Renfro laughed at the rogue X-5s, thinking that they could outwit her. You can never outwit me, Renfro thought, I created you.  
  
What she could create, she knew, she could destroy with a snap of her fingers. It was the simple fact of being in charge of this creatures, these chimeras, that sent chills down her spine. She was, in a large sense, their God, they're ruler. She was the Ultimate in their lives.  
  
Renfro slowly walked from the female prototype's room, on her way to check on the progress of the newly cloned X-7. Still worried that a new member would be rejected by it's hive-mates, she walked quickly and with purpose to her step.  
  
Upon entering the area in which they were scheduled to do skirmishes, she scanned the room and waited for a minute until she was finally certain that she wouldn't be able to detect the X-7s at all. Walking over to the officer working the group during that skirmish, she took the key from him.  
  
"You don't mind, do you?" Renfro asked. "I want to check out the new X-7." Renfro placed the key in a lock that was on a box near the door. The lock clicked and the face of the box fell forward. Renfro placed her thin fingers on a small, green button. The lights in the room brightened and a high pitched siren sounded briefly.  
  
The X-7s seemed to materialize out of the gray walls around Renfro. Giving herself a mental check, she observed them coldly. The newest prototype, the recently developed egg that had been implanted inside a surrogate womb, a man-made device that worked much as a living womb, then given the gene that aged her slowly until she was able to be born in about three hours time, was there, cold eyed and observant.  
  
"How is everything going?" Renfro asked with feigned kindness, trying to appear as a matronly personage. It was as she wanted to be with the X-7s, it was as she always was around them.  
  
With one voice, the X-7s replied, "Everything is going fine, ma'am."  
  
Not impressed by their ability to speak in unison -- they were, after all, hive-mates and could decided what each and every one of them was going to do at once -- Renfro nodded slowly. She looked down at the smallest in the group, one female prototype that had been the clone of Brin, and considered her carefully.  
  
The X-7s stood perfectly motionless while she viewed them. Disgusted at the lack of movement in the group, Renfro left suddenly and without a word to the X-7s. She walked down the hall toward the recently captured male prototype's room.  
  
"Zack," she said as she entered, "I have a surprise for you."  
  
Zack viewed her with ill disguised hate. Renfro smiled amiably at his expression. The act of faux friendship seemed to anger Zack; he sat up with a vehement declaration of hatred for Renfro.  
  
"Now, now, Zack," she told him. "If you aren't a good soldier I wont take you to see your clone, and if you don't see your clone, you don't see Tinga's clone, Ben's clone, Eva's clone, or," she chose words carefully, "Max's clone. Hell, they might even throw in Jack's clone, would that suit you?"  
  
Renfro saw his face contort in fury. The names she had spoken were those of his siblings that had died. What a pity he was so angry at the moment, she mused, he would be that much more difficult to extract information from.  
  
Renfro turned decisively toward the guards that were stationed near the prototype's bed. They looked weary; she wondered absently when they were scheduled to be relieved. "Be prepared to get him ready for transportation when I come back."  
  
Renfro left the room and walked down toward her office. Entering it, she pressed the intercom button. "Ruthie," she said, "would you please have X5-295 and X5-805 come to my office?"  
  
"Yes, Director Renfro," her secretary Ruthie replied. Renfro listened with amusement at the nasally sound of Ruthie's voice. Born in New York State, lived in Jersey for most of her childhood, Renfro recalled.  
  
Within two minutes, the requested X-5s stood politely at the door. Their faces were flushed and Renfro suspected that she had called them out of laps; she didn't much care.  
  
"Come," she told them, walking out the door and down the corridors. The prototypes followed at a respectful distance, their boots making eerie echoes in the hallway. When Renfro stopped before Zack's door, she looked at the two prototypes with her.  
  
"X5-599 has come back to us. You are to keep this information secret from X5-452. Also, you are to keep the secret that X5-452 is alive from X5-599. Do you understand?" Renfro looked down upon the prototypes, mildly interested in their reactions that their brother and their sister had come back.  
  
Their faces remained neutral; void of all emotions. Never let your personal feelings get in the way of a mission, Renfro said to herself. The prototypes had been trained well.  
  
"Yes, ma'am," they told her, almost together, but not quite. The X-5, Renfro recalled, hadn't the hive-mind like the X-7. It was very much alone in it's own thoughts. Wonderful if it had a surprising idea that would bring glory to Manticore; horrible if it had mutinous thoughts such as those of the rogue X-5s.  
  
Renfro entered the room. Zack was still restrained, but, by the looks and sweat on the faces of the guards, only just so. Behind her, the X-5s filed in and stood silently behind her.  
  
"Christa," Zack said. The female prototype showed the slightest sign of recognition in it's eyes as Renfro turned around. The male prototype stood there, but Renfro could see it's eyes darting back and forth. So the X-5s were finally showing some sign of emotion other than the hate that they had installed in them; Renfro was beginning to fear that only the rogues had learned emotion.  
  
"To it's left," Renfro told the female prototype. She arched her eyebrow at Zack, who was staring at the male prototype with hurt on it's face, hurt it was taking so long to name the X-5.  
  
"Gary," Zack said, finally. Renfro nodded, triumphant. Gary was one of twins that had been born to the X-5s; Gary and Leonard looked very much alike, being two of the same egg. Renfro was a little surprised and a little proud that after eleven years, the X-5 still could tell it's siblings apart. Splendid memory.  
  
Splendid. My God, Renfro thought, it has been eleven years. Eleven years and the prototype still remembers its siblings.   
  
Gary walked toward the left of Zack, undirected. Renfro decided to let it slide; it was an obvious thing to do, something that the X-7s wouldn't have done. The X-7s needed clear and concise information and they did nothing but what was told to them. They, of course, thought in their hive, what each member should do at the moment, what each one would do to best accomplish the mission and stay alive. They weren't like what the British had come up with at all.  
  
The British prototype was quite a joke. Renfro allowed herself to smile at the absurd ways the experiments had come out. With the first batch, much like the anomalies in X-2, there was too much animal DNA. Unlike the X-2s, however, the British prototype UK-1 showed now resemblance to the human.   
  
British geneticists had been using the gorilla as a basis of the animal DNA, their idea being that the immense strength of the gorilla would be added to the human strength and somehow multiplied. However, they added too much cat DNA to add flexibility and the end result was disastrous.  
  
Hideously disfigured, the UK-1s had lost more than half of their group before the end of the first month. The remaining of the group had an almost Martian appearance, and were unable to communicate with any known animal.  
  
Renfro had seen, through some lucky connections, the, for lack of a better description, recipe for the UK-1s. It was laughably off of the Manticore concoction. It was, in fact, more of lucky guesses than educated results. Renfro reminded herself, again, to never buy any drugs manufactured in the UK  
  
The X-7s were scheduled to be in the classrooms next, learning of the way the Chinese military commonly displayed their soldiers in battle. Renfro and the X-5 prototypes entered the classroom without knocking and stood at the back of the classroom.  
  
The effect on the recently brought back prototype was satisfying. He stared, transfixed, at each of the X-7 in turn. After a minute of silently observing the X-7 prototypes, Zack turned around violently. Christa and Gary were on him in a flash, holding his hands to his side and staring menacingly into his eyes.  
  
Even to their old commanding office, Renfro saw, they were hostile if called for. They knew the X-5 as a deserter; they also knew him as their leader. Yet they were ready to follow her and not him at any given moment.   
  
Renfro had won that one battle. She was confident she would win many more. 


End file.
